My Sources Say No
Before I get to the boring portion of my post (in which I talk about my inability to come up with an essay topic), I thought I might start off with something sweet:
My boyfriend bought me a box of 24 Ferrero Rocher hazelnut chocolates and needless to say, I’ve eaten 7 of these treats in the past hour alone. This can only mean that he plans on getting me fat and then eating me.
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What can I possibly say about Gabriel GarcÃa Marquez that hasn’t been said before? I read the english translation of 100 Hundred Years of solitude, a book that very literally took my breath away. I look forward to reading the spanish version and lose myself to his prose. I recently read the brief but profound Memories of My Melancholy Whores and decided that this would be the subject of my lengthy Senior paper.
I have a few problems. This paper is supposed to be the end of all undergraduate papers. This is the final essay assignment I must complete before graduation, the paper that’s supposed to define all my other papers. So, why can’t I come up with a significant paper topic? My professor asked each student in my class to describe their paper topics and texts while I stared at Garcia’s book cover hoping it would speak to me. With enthusiasm that made me sick to my stomach, my classmates explained how they were going to compare the dichotomy of roles of women with the feminine mind or the postmodernism of Derrida found in literature or another similarly pretentious idea. When she reached me, I offered her a strange fumbling of words, “I think I’m going to do my paper on the text Memories of My Melancholy Whores. I want to discuss how abstinence and silence reinvigorate the flaccid soul of the main character.” What? I couldn’t gauge my professor’s reaction but since I was at the end of the table, she simply nodded politely then moved on with the next segment of class.
I reminded myself that I am finishing my undergraduate studies and if I were to write another paper on Marquez’s use of magical realism in his novels, well, who the hell cares?
Still, Memories of My Melancholy Whores is a mysterious novel in which the main character, a nintey-year old man, falls in love with a 14-year old sleeping virgin; a prostitute. They never speak to each other and they never sleep together yet it brings up all kinds of questions related to true love, prositution, pedophelia, text, sexuality, youth and old age. All the ideas swirling in my head are too intangible for me to narrow into a solid thesis. This Thursday, I’m expected to bring in a tentative bibliography of my sources which I’ve collected but without any real direction. I can’t find much on Memories other than book reviews but it would help if I had more than “flaccid” to go on. Flaccid, Christ, which asshole did I pull that out of?
Vanessa (February 7, 2007, 12:46 pm).
I have never read any of Marquez’s books, though “Love in the Time of Cholera” has been sitting on my shelf, unread, for several months now. I’m thinking I should maybe make reading it a higher priority than I have been, eh?
I won a box of the Ferrero Rocher’s this christmas (I kicked butt at christmas-themed trivial pursuit, yay!). They are DIVINE aren’t they?
After reading your whole name explanation I feel all proud of myself for being able to roll my R’s and and knowing where to put emphasis in your name due to the accent over the “i”. Thank you god for spanish class.
MC (February 7, 2007, 2:28 pm).
I haven’t read Love in the Time of Cholera yet. His books (even the short Memories one) require a lot of attention and effort to read, especially if one wants to appreciate the puns, symbolisms and metaphors. I have to admit, he tends to go over my head but I think it only makes re-reading his works more pleasurable.
Marianne (February 7, 2007, 5:39 pm).
I would swiffer your floors if I could.
A side story: I was talking with a friend about how much I enjoy a certain book (The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs). He opened the book to a page, read for about ten seconds, then threw it down disgustedly and declared, “I hate reading.” After that, another guy chimed it and echoed that statement. Ugh. I was really disappointed.
Anna (February 7, 2007, 6:50 pm).
Ferraro Rochers are beyond amazing. After receiving a box of those, does your thesis/future really matter as much as the exquisite taste of a moment?
MC (February 8, 2007, 12:32 am).
Marianne, actually, I’m an idiot. I meant to say that I LOVE swiffering but I HATE laundry. But I’ve demonstrated that I can’t construct a simple sentence that reflects my wants and dislikes.
Anna, I feel the same way. Ferrero Rochers are fleeting, precious moments of delicious that won’t last forever. However, I can be in school until the day I die…
Kenneth (February 8, 2007, 7:00 am).
You only ate 7 in one hour?
You have great self restrain.
lain (February 9, 2007, 12:47 am).
i studied Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” in high school, it was apparently the winner of a nobel prize. Maybe you should check out the english translation of that one. it’s quite good, I would think, although when I read it, it was in haste and mostly in preparation for exams, but now that you mention it, between math and chem i’d like to read it again, along with Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. It’s hauntingly beautiful.
try it?
hopefully this would help, although being a weak english student in science major.
P.S. “Chronicle of a Death Foretold’ is SHORT, 120 pages, paperback.
worth reading, quick read too
MC (February 9, 2007, 1:25 am).
Lain, that’s a great suggestion. I hadn’t heard that title before and I’ll definately look it up. I’ll probably find more relevant sources for a substantial paper topic than the too-new Memories if My Melancholy Whores.
It’s though, you know, to read for leisure while taking classes. I feel like I’m missing out on some fantastic contemporary literature.
Croaker (February 9, 2007, 11:16 pm).
Believe it or not I once heard a review of this book on NPR. That is probably as close to reading it that I will get. Perhaps when I am an old man still chasing after younger girls I will have more of an interest.
MC (February 10, 2007, 1:22 am).
Nonsense, you’re already an old man chasing after younger girls.
Marilyn (April 9, 2008, 10:15 pm).
Hey, i’m actually having to do my senior thesis on that book.
it was a wonderful book.
Hopefully it went well ; i’m having so much trouble having to write about it